Viewing All of Life thru the Lens of Faith, Hope & Love

Considering Instructing a Child’s Heart

I was not raised in a family that understood the gospel and raised children with a God-ward orientation or focused on our hearts. As I seek to raise the 2 little lives (with more to come?) He has placed in my care, I recognize I need help. I found Shepherding a Child’s Heartto be helpful. So when Ted & Margy Tripp released Instructing a Child’s Heart, I believed it would be helpful for me.

I was not wrong. Unlike the previous book, which focused on corrective discipline, this book focused on formative instruction-

“Formative instruction gives children principles and absolutes by which to live- hooks to hang life on.”

They address 5 goals for formative instruction, and the call to formative instruction from Deuteronomy 6, communicating formative instruction, and topics including authority, sowing & reaping, a vision for God’s glory, the importance of the church and ultimately the centrality of the gospel. The book is humbling, as I reckon with how often I fail as a parent (therefore the gospel is for me too!).

This is a very good book, but not a perfect book. There are statements they make that I would disagree with, as in Shepherding a Child’s Heart. One of those was in the chapter on authority. There is much in that chapter that is good, true and right. But not this:

There is a popular method of child management that powerfully illustrates my point. “Honey, you can wear the red shirt, the green shirt, or the blue shirt. It’s up to you.”

It does not occur to a three-year-old that there are more than three shirts in the closet. He makes his choice. Mother is indifferent to which shirt the child chooses. All are equally appropriate. On the surface it seems like a win, win. The child feels like he is a decision-maker, mother gets him to wear something appropriate, and there is no fight. What could be better than that?

While all that sounds very good and quite enlightened, in reality the subtext for the child is, “You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.”

As made in God’s image, our children need to learn to choose wisely. There is no magical age at which this happens. We are to teach them how to make decisions while under authority. The parent here sets the proper boundaries, and provides some freedom. My 3-year-old knows she has more than 3 shirts in her closet. My child is not my slave, though she is my responsibility. I must teach her about living under authority- but an authority that loves and nurtures her (and him), not one that will squelch. Refusing to teach them to make decisions within boundaries, in my opinion, gives them an unhealthy view of authority. Obviously the Tripps disagree with me.

You don’t have to agree with every jot and tittle to find a book helpful. I still found it very helpful, and CavWife plans on reading it too. Some of what was helpful was the discussions about how we tend to reinforce our children’s idols, as well as the culture’s and our own as parents. Part of good, godly parenting is to turn from our own idols, helping them to see their own idols and to lay hold of Christ instead. The gospel is not a parenting add-on, but at the very core of parenting.

Paul found joy in the gospel and never moved beyond the gospel because he knew the gospel was the power of God for salvation- including everything fron initial calling by grace, to justification, to ultimate glorification. We never move beyond the centrality of the gospel.